Language
A language is a collection of symbols (called vocabulary or lexicon) and rules for connecting these symbols (called grammar) that facilitates communication.
Origin
The origin of language has been debated for long time among linguists, biologists, cognitive scientists, theologians, anthropologists, along with many other disciplines. Currently, the most wide held belief is that language has evolutionary origins (Pinker, 1997). However, this has not been proven definitively.
Language differs from call signs used by primates and other animals in that language can be used without prompting or a stimulus and is necessary for higher thinking. Call signs are regarded merely as forms of communication rather than abstract symbol use.
Although linguists have been able to allocate most languages to a small number of language "families", they have been unable to find a common origin of these language families. A few of the largest and oldest families include: Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Niger-Congo families (Campbell, 98).
Creationist view
Main article:Tower of Babel
Since the end of the Great Flood all humans spoke the same language. The survivers started to build a Tower, called Tower of Babel. God thought that the people would become high-spirited and stopped the construction, by creating several languages. The tower was not completed and the people travelled through the world, where they spread their languages.[1]
Examples of Languages
- Abkhaz
- Ainu
- Akkadian
- Albanian
- Atayal
- Avar
- American sign language
- American
- Arabic
- Aramaic
- Armenian
- Aymara
- Babylonian
- Balinese
- Basque
- Belgian
- Bomok
- Bulgarian
- Cantonese
- Carib
- Catalan
- Chumash
- Cree
- Crimean Tatar
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dari
- Dutch
- Ebonics
- Elvish
- Estonian
- Finnish
- Flemish
- French
- Gaelic
- Georgian
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hiri Motu
- Hungarian
- Icelandic
- Inupiat
- Italian
- Japanese
- Javanese
- Jive
- Kabardian
- Kardashian
- Korean
- Lardil
- Latin
- Latvian
- Laz
- Lezgin
- Lithuanian
- Macedonian
- Malay
- Mandarin Chinese
- Mexican Spanish
- Miccosukkee
- Mingrelian
- Mohawk
- Mongolian
- Nahuatl
- Navajo
- Navarrese
- Norwegian
- Okinawan
- Pashtun
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Quechua
- Russian
- Romanian
- Romansh
- Sanskrit
- Serbian
- Sicilian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Somali
- Spanish
- Sumerian
- Svan
- Swedish
- Tahitian
- Tamil
- Timucua
- Tok Pisin
- Turkish
- Ugaritic
- Ukrainian
- Urdu
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Yiddish
- Yolgnu
- Yucatec Mayan
- Zulu
See Also
- Category:Languages for language families and languages
- Information
- Essay:Best New Conservative Words
- Conservative Words Not Yet Recognized by the Dictionary
- Downgraded Conservative Terms
- Essay:New Liberal Terms
- Essay:Surprising Dates of Origin for Terms
- Linguistic Analysis of Candidates
- Conservative Bible Project
- Essay:Conservapedia's Law
- Secularized Language
- Terms Difficult to Classify
- Language: Etymology, Vocabulary